


Sunlit

by Evoxine



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: 19 Days!AU, A lot of feels tbh, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 13:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12322356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evoxine/pseuds/Evoxine
Summary: In which Sehun and Jongin are childhood best friends with something stronger than friendship tying them together.





	Sunlit

**Author's Note:**

> 19 Days! AU because sekai fits it so well :')

**Throwback, Part One:**

Seven-year-old Oh Sehun clings onto his mother’s hand as they walk up the few steps into his new school. It’s his first day of first grade, and he’s super nervous. His mum gives his tiny hand a squeeze, and Sehun peers up at her through his thick hair, worried and nervous.

“It’s okay, baby,” she says, ruffling his hair with her free hand. “School will be fun, you’ll see. You will meet lots of people, get lots of friends, and get to learn cool things!”

Sehun just frowns and stares around the big, big room.

There are a few children already seated in chairs – Sehun sees a little girl doodling on a sheet of paper with a pink marker, two boys in the corner squabbling over Legos, and a boy with curls crying as he tries to prevent his mother from leaving.

Sighing, Sehun presses close to his own mother. He really doesn’t want to go to school.

 

 

 

  
Seven-year-old Kim Jongin peers curiously past the doors and cringes at the sheer amount of noise emanating from his fellow classmates.

“They’re loud,” Jongin grumbles, holding onto his father’s pant leg.

He gets an absent pat on the head in return. As his father continues talking to the teacher, Jongin releases his hold on the fabric and takes a few tentative steps into the room. He sees kids split into little groups, some in pairs, and one little boy huddled alone in the corner, on his bright green plastic chair.

“Papa,” Jongin starts, turning around. “Why is that boy all alone?”

Jongin’s father lowers himself down to Jongin’s height and pinches the boy’s cheek.

“Maybe he’s shy. Why don’t you go say hi?”

Jongin nods thoughtfully. “Okay. I will, Papa.”

 

 

 

  
“Hi,” Jongin says, scooting over to the silent boy who’s still seated on that green chair. It’s lunchtime, and everyone else is busy trading plain milk for chocolate milk and broccoli for cheese sticks. Everyone else but this little boy. He’s been quiet all morning, without a single friend to talk to, and Jongin feels a little bad for him.

The only response he receives is a slight widening of the boy’s eyes.

“My name is Jongin,” Jongin offers. He picks up an octopus-shaped-hotdog and puts it in the boy’s lunchbox.

“... I’m Sehun.”

Jongin watches as Sehun nudges the octopus around with his orange chopsticks. Several grains of rice stick to the octopus’ legs.

“Wanna be friends?”

A little smile plays along the seam of Sehun’s lips. “Okay.”

 

 

 

  
**Throwback, Part One-and-a-Half:**

Ten-year-old Kim Jongin walks into his homeroom just in time to see the grade’s biggest bully stick out his foot and send his best friend flying through the air. Sehun skids across the carpeted floor, knees chafing painfully against the material and rolls to a stop just before he hits the legs of a table.

Amidst the sniggering, Jongin stalks up to the bully, yanks the stool out from under the horrible child’s ass, and doesn’t spare him a second glance as he topples to the floor ungraciously. Hurrying to Sehun’s side, he pulls his friend up into a seated position, puffs cool air over Sehun’s raw knees, and looks up at him sadly.

There are so many bruises and small scars dotted along Sehun’s legs – all received over the past couple years of bullying that he’s been subjected to. It’s easy to bully Sehun, Jongin has to admit. The boy never stands up for himself, preferring to just take whatever the bullies choose to dish out.

“One day, I’m going to be strong enough so I can protect you. So that no one will dare to hurt you.”

 

 

 

  
**Throwback, Part Two:**

Twelve-year-old Oh Sehun hikes his backpack a little higher up on his shoulders and huffs for the _n_ th time as he waits impatiently for his best friend. He woke up late today – their first day of sixth grade – and missed breakfast. He hates missing breakfast, hates how his stomach starts gnawing at itself before his first class even starts and growls in demand to be fed. What he hates even more than missing breakfast is the constant, aching pain in his mouth.

Over the summer holidays, Sehun’s parents had managed to convince (read: coerced, forced, manipulated, etc.) him to get braces, and as if the lisp wasn’t bad enough, the soreness is still there. The second he wakes up in the morning, his mood gets ruined from the throbbing in his gums and the tenderness of his teeth. Can teeth even feel tender?

 _And_ it doesn’t help that puberty’s begun. Sehun’s beginning to find hair in places on his body that he deems disgusting, he’s shot up an inch in the past two months, and morning wood has finally made its appearance. At least his voice cracks aren’t too atrocious, and at least his skin doesn’t break out as badly as Jongin’s currently does.

The door to Jongin’s house flies open, and a preteen sprints out, bag flopping against his side as he runs.

“Hey! Sorry, tripped over Janggu and spilled my cereal all over the place – had to clean the mess up.”

“Do you ever brush your hair?” Sehun asks, reaching up and trying fruitlessly to tame the bird’s nest on Jongin’s head.

“Nah,” Jongin replies, swatting Sehun’s hand away. “Can’t be bothered.”

They start off on their fifteen minute walk to school, shoulders pressed up against each other.

“Are we getting ice cream after school today?”

Sehun grabs Jongin’s hand, threads their fingers together, and squeezes. Jongin gives Sehun a few seconds to indulge before gently shaking his friend off.

“Of course. My turn to treat today.”

 

 

 

  
It’s almost inevitable that Sehun gets teased relentlessly over his braces and his lisp. Kids, boys and girls alike, are horribly vicious, and some were probably born to be assholes. But although it hurts – one kid once (quite literally) spat in his face in an ‘imitation’ of his lisp –, Sehun is able to tolerate it with Jongin’s help.

His best friend doesn’t take anyone’s shit, and it’s great. Coming from a household full of headstrong girls, Jongin had to learn – the hard way – how to claw his way through in order to get what he wanted. Sometimes he’d lose miserably, but he always knows what he has to do to succeed. So, when it comes to Sehun’s bullies, he’ll leave smelly socks in their lockers, smear craft glue into the girls’ ponytails, cut holes the into boys’ school pants while they’re in gym class, and if the situation really calls for it, he can give a mean noogie. All while maintaining a poker face.

So even though he knows he’s the butt of everyone’s jokes, Sehun doesn’t mind, for the most part. He’ll always have Jongin on his side to fend them off, and that’s what really matters in the end.

 

 

 

  
“Hey, don’t forget. If anyone tries to hurt you, I’m gonna be there to punch them in the face.”

Sehun laughs, gives Jongin a hug that Jongin willingly sits through, and turns back to the book they’re being forced to read.

 

 

 

  
**Throwback, Part Two-and-a-Half:**

Fourteen-year-old Oh Sehun realizes that he’s probably gay for the first time when he accidentally comes across a gif of two men kissing on Tumblr. He feels his heart speed up, and his mouth goes a little dry.

Fourteen-year-old Oh Sehun realizes that he’s definitely gay when he grabs Jongin’s face in his hands, leans in, and plants his lips squarely on his best friend’s. The touch of Jongin’s lips against his own sends his heart rocketing into the stratosphere, and pure joy seeps into his pores.

Jongin, bless him, lets Sehun kiss him for a total of three seconds before shoving him away and clearing his throat.

“Do you…” he begins. “Like boys?”

Sehun blinks at his friend, suddenly nervous.

“I think so.”

Nodding, Jongin claps Sehun on the shoulder.

“Cool.”

 

 

 

  
**Throwback, Part Three:**

Fifteen-year-old Kim Jongin has an unhealthy obsession with video games. It’s a good thing that high school seems to be easy thus far, because if he has to juggle studying and gaming, Jongin isn’t sure which one he would prioritize.

The door swings open, and Jongin glances away from the TV screen for a split second, enough to notice Sehun strolling into the room, a pitcher of lemonade in hand.

“Here, mum made this earlier today. She even remembered that you like slices of grapefruit in your lemonade.”

Jongin pauses his game and accepts the glass that Sehun’s poured out for him. He looks at the small plate of grapefruit slices and raises an eyebrow.

“Did she remember or did you remember?”

“What do you mean?”

“You cut these; I know because you can’t slice fruit for shit,” Jongin says, pointing at the uneven, jagged edges of the sliced fruit.

Sehun shrugs, a lopsided smile appearing on his face. Just a few weeks ago, he was finally able to remove those damn braces, and he hasn’t stopped smiling since. He picks up a grapefruit slice and drops it into Jongin’s glass.

“Does it matter?”

Jongin takes a gulp, savours the tartness – and slight sweetness – of the drink, and hums.

“I guess it doesn’t.”

He goes back to his game, unbothered when Sehun slides socked feet onto his lap and provides commentary for his gameplay over the next hour.

 

 

 

  
Jongin stays over that night, managing to win the coveted spot on Sehun’s king-sized bed after a heated rock-paper-scissors battle that ended up in a vicious, impromptu wrestling match on the hardwood floor. The bedframe gave Sehun a bruise on his shin, and Jongin stubbed all the toes on his left foot. But Jongin won, and he’s currently passed out on the bed, covers tangled up between his legs, an arm hanging off the side.

Sehun, wide awake, sits cross-legged on the sleeping bag strewn haphazardly across his floor. He stares at Jongin’s hand, traces the veins down Jongin’s forearm with his eyes, and before he knows it, his own hand is reaching out. His fingers slide between Jongin’s lax ones, and even though the angle is a little weird, Sehun is willing to bear with the pinch in his elbow just to feel Jongin’s hand in his a little while longer.

When Jongin shifts, Sehun pulls his hand back. A few seconds are better than nothing, he muses, shuffling under the sleeping bag and curling into himself.

 

 

 

  
**Present Day:**

Seventeen-year-old Oh Sehun doesn’t get bullied anymore. Well, only one person ever picks on him nowadays, and it’s only because he’s one of the few people who are taller than him. Park Chanyeol is more annoying than he is scary, and Chanyeol’s version of bullying is much more verbal than it is physical. Sehun likes it this way; verbal bullshit is a lot easier to ignore than a wedgie.

Ever since he’d joined the basketball team in his junior year, he’s started to fill out, and the number of people that dare to bother him have steadily dwindled. It also helps that he no longer has that damned lisp. It also _really_ helps that Jongin, who’s just a teeny bit shorter than he is, had started working out at the gym a few months ago.

“Where’re you going?” Jongin asks, without looking up from his phone.

“Bathroom,” Sehun answers, brushing his hair out of his eyes with a swipe of his hand.

Jongin makes a non-committal sound and goes back to his mobile game.

“Going to jack off in the bathroom, Sehun?” Chanyeol calls from the other end of the classroom, making a crude gesture with his hands. “That’s the only form of action you get, right?”

“Speaking from experience, are you? Do it a lot at school?” Sehun calls back easily, and exits the classroom without bothering to see Chanyeol’s cheeks slowly flood with red. By the window, Jongin snorts in his seat.

 

 

 

  
Whistling as he walks out of the bathroom, Sehun turns a corner and nearly collides with a petite girl. Who so happens to be standing right by Jongin’s locker, a baby pink envelope in hand. Sehun rolls his eyes – another one of Jongin’s admirers.

“That for Jongin?” Sehun asks, jerking his chin towards the envelope pinched between two perfectly manicured fingers.

“Who – oh, you’re Jongin’s best friend, right?”

Sehun blinks at her.

“Uh, yeah, could you pass this to him?”

Sehun plucks the envelope out of her grasp, lips pursed.

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

  
When he gets back to his classroom, he sees Chanyeol standing by his desk, his phone in hand.

“Nini <3,” Chanyeol reads out loud. “Ooh, who’s this? Does Sehun have a –”

“Hey asshole,” Jongin starts, getting up from his seat and slapping Sehun’s phone out of his hand. “Mind your own fucking business.”

Chanyeol manages to hide his wince, schooling his features into one of amusement.

“Oh? You jealous that your little pet has someone saved in his phone with a heart next to her name?”

“You’re a dumb asshole, aren’t you? _I’m_ Nini, you twit.”

Chanyeol can only gape at an irritated Jongin.

Sehun takes the chance to walk up to them, shove a confused Chanyeol away, and place the envelope on Jongin’s desk.

“Another one of these for you,” he says, a little too casually. Sliding back into his seat, he turns to flip Chanyeol off and sticks his head into his math textbook. Jongin looks from the love note on his desk up to Sehun’s obscured face and frowns.

 

 

 

  
It’s a Thursday night, and it’s storming outside.

Jongin’s in his room and filling out a few college applications, accompanied by Troyboi playing softly on his speakers. He’s almost done with the last one, going over his personal statement for the eighth time, when someone knocks rapidly on his door.

“Jongin, Sehun’s at the door – I think you should come out right now.”

The worry in his mother’s voice instantly brings Jongin to his feet, and he sprints out of his room in a heartbeat. At his front door, his eyes land on Sehun’s drenched form, a thin, white tank plastered to his lean torso. The white’s tainted by streaks of dark red – the colour supplied by busted knuckles on both of Sehun’s hands.

“What the fuck happened,” Jongin demands, pulling Sehun into the house by his soaked tank. His mother brings over a large, beach towel, and Jongin bundles Sehun up in it before pushing him into the living room.

“Uh,” Sehun begins, seeming a little dazed. Jongin yanks Sehun down onto the couch next to him. “Was at the basketball court, just minding my own business, when a couple of guys came out of nowhere and started hassling me.”

“What’d they do to you?”

Taking the first aid kit that his mother silently hands over to him, Jongin starts tending to the cuts on Sehun’s face and the shallow gashes on his arms.

“Tried to take me somewhere,” Sehun says. “I wouldn’t go with them. Put up a fight. I think I broke the nose of one of them.”

Jongin wraps a bandage over a large, scraped area on Sehun’s forearm.

“You’re telling me that you almost got kidnapped.”

Sehun nods slowly. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Kidnapped. Right. And you didn’t think to call the cops the second you got away?”

“My phone got crushed in the process,” Sehun says, shrugging. “Didn’t have change for a public phone. And honestly, I would’ve probably called you first if I got my hands on a phone.”

Giving his best friend a flat, yet exasperated look, Jongin picks up one of Sehun’s hands in his own and gazes down at the bloodied knuckles. He swipes the pad of his thumb gently across the wounds; Sehun doesn’t flinch in the slightest.

“At least you gave as good as you got, huh?”

A chuckle escapes from Sehun’s throat, and Jongin soaks another cotton pad with antiseptic. He works in silence, and Sehun watches him work in equal silence.

When Sehun’s finally patched up, Jongin strides into the kitchen and brews a mug of tea.

“Drink,” he orders, pushing the mug under Sehun’s nose. “I don’t want you to get sick from the rain.”

They spend the next ten minutes bickering over calling the police – Sehun doesn’t want to, but Jongin insists that he does.

“I’ve got you, right? I don’t need anyone else. It’s not like the police are gonna do anything about it, anyway.”

Sighing, Jongin sinks down into the cushions and rests his cheek on Sehun’s shoulder. Not long after, he feels a weight on the crown of his head, and still-damp strands of Sehun’s hair fall lightly across his forehead.

“Just don’t make me worry about you.”

 

 

 

  
Somehow, life goes back to normal after that. A little too easily, if the both of them were forced to be entirely honest about it. Sehun pretends that he never got into a fight, pretends that he wasn’t almost abducted, and Jongin goes along with it, simply because he doesn’t want to think about it either.

“J-Jongin?”

Turning around, Jongin sees a pair of huge eyes staring up at him through what he likes to call ‘bug glasses’. You know, the oversized, round, thick-rimmed glasses?

“Yeah?” He doesn't know her name.

“Did you… read my letter?”

“What letter?”

“I asked your friend – Sehun, I think? – to pass you a letter a couple of weeks ago… it’s pink?” She sighs. “He didn’t do it, did he? I’m not surprised, he always seems to –”

“I got that letter,” Jongin says, tone icy. “He gave it to me, just like he said he would.”

The girl winces. “Sorry, it’s just that he always seems irritated when girls come up to you, and –”

“What did you want?”

“Um, well, I was wondering if you’d go to the movies with me after school today?”

“Can’t,” Jongin says immediately. “I have plans.”

He’s not lying. He really does have plans; he’s supposed to join Sehun and a couple of other seniors down at the basketball court for a game or two. Bidding the disappointed girl goodbye with a curt nod, Jongin heads off for his next class.

 

 

 

  
The sun’s beating savagely down on them; Sehun feels as though he’s a potato that got shoved into the oven to get baked. He’s probably cooked enough to get a blob of sour cream dumped on his face right about now.

Sehun’s basketball lies forgotten by a row of shrubs, the owner himself strewn across a wooden bench with his head in Jongin’s sweatpant-clothed lap. Fingers are threading through his sweat-soaked hair – for some reason, Jongin isn’t disgusted by his sweat, and that makes Sehun very happy.

“Would you be so kind as to dump some water on my head? I think my brain’s cooking.” Sehun asks, squinting up at his friend. Jongin peers down at him.

“No. It’ll look as though I peed myself.”

Sehun pouts, but Jongin will have none of it. Leaning back on his arms, Jongin dumps water onto his own head and shakes droplets out of his hair, much like his precious dogs do. Cool water manages to get on Sehun’s face, and Sehun sighs in momentary bliss.

“Some girl asked me out today,” Jongin says casually, draining the rest of his water. “Wanted to go to the movies after school.”

“Oh? What did you say?”

“I said no, obviously.”

“Obviously?”

“If I said yes, who’d come and play ball with you?” Jongin says, matter-of-factly.

Sehun smiles.

 

 

 

  
Sehun’s mother is away for business very often, and his father isn’t the picture anymore. So Jongin spends a lot of time at Sehun’s house, under the guise of using his vast array of gaming consoles. In actuality, the both of them know that Jongin spends time at Sehun’s house just to keep him company, to fill the large property with sounds of life.

Sounds from Call of Duty flood the room – Jongin’s slumped against the base of the couch, legs spread out across the floor, controller in hands as he navigates the map with the ease of a veteran. Sehun’s lying prone on the couch, an arm wrapped around a pillow, eyes trained on his phone screen.

The doorbell rings; pizza’s here.

“My wallet’s on the dining table,” Jongin says.

Sehun slides off the couch, grabs Jongin’s wallet, and pulls out a couple of bills for the food. A folded piece of paper flutters out, dragged along by the money, and Sehun bends to pick it up.

It’s a photograph, tattered edges telling of its age and how often human touch graces its surface. Curious, Sehun unfolds it.

His own face – albeit ten years younger – stares back at him. The photograph is of himself and Jongin, on the last day of first grade. They’ve got their little arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, matching toothy grins, and a ketchup stain is visible on the sleeve of Jongin’s shirt.

 

 

 

  
Through the dim of the firefight on the screen, Jongin hears dull thudding out near the front door. Something heavy drops to the ground, and Jongin sits up a little straighter.

“Sehun?”

When he doesn’t hear an answer, Jongin hits pause and scrambles to his feet.

“Sehun!”

Darting down the hallway, his skin starts prickling with unease. Something’s not right.

The front door’s wide open, two pizza boxes on the ground, lids open and the pies spilling out onto the pavement. Jongin’s wallet is on the table, the photograph on the floor alongside two twenties and an overturned chair.

“Son of a bitch.”

Sehun’s gone, taken by God knows who for God knows why, and Jongin feels so sick to his stomach that he thinks he might throw up right into the rose bush by Sehun’s door.

 

 

 

  
It’s three days later when Sehun returns at the crack of dawn. The sun’s just beginning to rise, tinting the house with soft shades of gold and orange. Jongin hasn’t moved from his spot on the chair, hasn’t slept for more than seven hours in total, the photograph never leaving his clammy hands.

He’d called Sehun’s mother halfway through the first day. She didn’t seem surprised whatsoever, which freaked Jongin right the fuck out, because what parent _expects_ their kid to get kidnapped? He didn’t ask for answers, however, having assumed that she will provide some when the time is right. So, as she called up people she knows for information and favours, Jongin stayed waiting by the door.

At long last, Sehun stumbles through the front door, shirt torn and breathing ragged. At the sight of his best friend, all battered and bruised, Jongin bolts to his side and gathers Sehun into his arms, tucking his face into Sehun’s neck. He can feel the fluttering of Sehun’s heartbeat against his cheek. Somehow, it calms him.

“You scared the fuck out of me,” Jongin mutters, fingers digging almost painfully into the flesh underneath his touch. He needs to feel that the body he’s holding is real; that Sehun’s actually there, that his brain isn’t fucking around with him.

“I scared the fuck out of me, too,” Sehun replies, chapped lips pressing into Jongin’s shoulder. “They were, uh, looking for my father?”

Before Jongin can say anything else, Sehun’s mother comes around the corner, and he leaves the two of them to talk.

 

 

 

  
Sehun finds Jongin sound asleep on his couch, and he sinks onto the ground by Jongin’s head, a bruised hand reaching up to brush soft strands away from his serene face.

“I don’t think you understand how happy I am to see you after these few shitty days,” Sehun whispers, as softly as he can. His mother had told him that Jongin had barely slept while waiting for his return; at that, something ached pleasantly inside him.

“Which is why this will hurt so fucking bad,” Sehun finishes, draping a throw over Jongin’s shoulders. “I’ll see you sometime soon, okay? I hope.”

He thumbs at Jongin’s cheek, sighs, and gets up. His mother, a painfully sympathetic look on her face, passes him a backpack, and Sehun leaves a photo album along with a vague note on the kitchen counter before they leave the house.

 

 

 

  
Jongin wakes up to a dark, empty house.

In his panic, he misses the note on the counter, and it’s only after his third search of the house does he spot it.

_Nini;_

_Gone off with mum for a while to try and sort this out; I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call you as soon as I am, okay? Well, that’s assuming I get a chance to get a new phone lol_

_Feel free to come to the house and game; but make sure you lock the doors and shit, I don’t want anyone to come after you too._

_I’ll miss ya_

_~~Love~~ ,_  
_Sehun_

The note’s pushed aside in favour of the photo album. The spine groans slightly when Jongin opens it, and the musty scent of old paper reaches his nose. Jongin blinks down at the photographs, lips parting slightly in surprise – the pages of the album are filled with pictures of both Sehun and himself, from first grade all the way to the present time.

Most of the photographs are pictures printed out from Sehun’s phone – Jongin finally understands why Sehun loves pressing him for selfies. As he sits in the empty kitchen, flipping through the pages, Jongin realizes that he remembers the story behind every single one of them.

 

 

 

  
Sehun is gone for a month.

His mother had called in to excuse Sehun from school, but Jongin still takes it upon himself to take detailed notes in all the classes he shares with Sehun. It’s weird, he decides, not having Sehun by his side, every second of every hour of every day. Even Chanyeol seems a little lost.

For the whole month, Jongin goes to school in the morning, then goes straight home. He ignores Sehun’s basketball friends when they try to invite him out for a game or two; he ignores girls that try to ask him out on dates; and he ignores his heart’s demand of going over to Sehun’s (empty) house and climbing into Sehun’s (empty) bed.

He’s lying in bed on a Sunday night, 3DS console in his hands (read: procrastinating on a 3000 word essay), when his phone starts to vibrate. The device clatters across his desk obnoxiously, and Jongin has to force himself off the bed in order to locate it.

_Unknown Number_

“Hello?”

“Hey. Can I see you right now? I really want to see you right now.”

Jongin nearly trips over his phone charger as he scrambles to pull a pair of jeans on. It’s Sehun; his voice, although tired and strained, is unmistakable.

“Where are you?”

“At the park by your house.”

“I’ll be there in five. Wait for me.”

 

 

 

  
Jongin runs as fast as his legs will take him.

When he gets to the park, Sehun’s seated on a swing, swaying slowly back and forth. His shoulders are hunched, hands limp in his lap, long hair fluttering in the wind.

“You need a haircut,” is the first thing Jongin says, coming up behind Sehun and threading his fingers into the strands. Sehun hums, leans into Jongin’s touch, and closes his eyes.

They stay like that for a moment, the silence comforting, until the questions finally spill out of Jongin’s mouth.

“What happened? Are you okay? Is your mother okay?”

“Those men were looking for my dad,” Sehun says, head still pillowed in Jongin’s palm, “so Mum and I went looking for him too. Turns out he’s a mafia boss – or something like that, I don’t fucking know. All I know is that he runs with a dangerous crowd, and he owes some equally dangerous people something. They left us alone though, for the most part, once they realized what we were doing. When we found him, we passed him on to them. I gave him a black eye too, for shits and giggles. I don’t know what they’re going to do with him, nor do I care. He’s never been in my life, so for all intents and purposes, he’s just the man who fathered me and nothing else.”

“You were gone for so long.”

“He’s not an easy man to find.”

When Sehun lifts his head, Jongin settles into the other swing.

“Don’t leave. Ever again.”

“I won’t,” Sehun replies. That dorky, lopsided smile appears on his face, and Jongin suddenly wants to cry.

 

 

 

  
Jongin convinces – not that it took a lot for him to agree – Sehun to stay the night.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Sehun pulls a sleeping bag out from under Jongin’s bed.

“...No.”

“What?”

“No. Sleep on the bed. With me.”

Sehun’s face pales, then flushes bright red.

“Uh, I don’t –”

“Sehun.” Jongin reaches out for the boy’s wrist. Still as thin and bony as ever. “Look at me.”

Terrified eyes lift to meet his.

“Can I ask you something?”

He hears Sehun hold his breath.

“Do you like me?”

Sehun exhales. “Of course I like you. You’re my best friend. What kind of –”

“Do you _like_ me?”

A visible swallow. A lick of the lips. A nervous run of fingers through hair.

Then, something seems to click in Sehun’s brain. He twists his wrist gently out of Jongin’s grip and forces his friend to take a seat on the bed. Jongin obeys, and Sehun takes a deep breath before reaching out and cupping Jongin’s face in his palms.

“I love you. I have loved you every day since I met you, and I will probably continue to do so. I’ve loved only you. I still love only you. I will love only you. It’s always been you. I don’t think you know how much, and I don’t think you know how hard it’s been to deal with this. To love your best friend for years and not know if he feels the same.”

He sighs, closes his eyes, and lets go of Jongin’s face.

“I’ll go sleep in the living room.”

He tucks the sleeping bag under his arm and pads out of the bedroom.

 

 

 

  
It’s pitch black in the living room, and all Jongin can hear is the rustling of the sleeping bag as Sehun tosses and turns underneath it.

“Why are you sleeping on the floor? The couch is so much more comfortable,” Jongin mumbles, carefully making his way across to where he thinks Sehun is just by using his memory.

“I’m more used to the sleeping bag,” is Sehun’s answer, and Jongin can detect a tinge of sadness in his voice.

He waits until his eyesight adapts to the darkness before sitting down next to the lump that is his best friend; with feather-light fingers, he brushes away the mess of hair covering Sehun’s eyes and forces Sehun to look at him.

There’s an unnatural shine to Sehun’s eyes, and it sends millions of pinpricks of pain shooting straight into Jongin’s heart.

“Sehun, I know now.”

In their ten years of friendship, Jongin’s never felt so scared around Sehun in his life. But it’s a good kind of scared, he thinks, the kind of scared that propels you to do what you’ve always wanted but never had the balls to. So he lets the nerves take over as he leans down and presses his lips to Sehun’s, fingers tightening instinctively around silky strands.

The pressure’s light, maybe just right, and Sehun lets out a small whimper.

Jongin pulls back just an inch, kisses Sehun on the forehead, and makes to stand.

“Come on. Come to bed.”

 

 

 

  
The next morning, Sehun wakes up to a face full of Jongin’s shirt and warm, strong arms around his shoulders. It feels so good – so much like home –, that Sehun tears up a little and buries further into Jongin’s chest.

It takes them a while to reconfigure their relationship; the transition from best friends to more-than-just-best-friends is something neither of them have ever experienced, and the revelation of their feelings happened way too quickly for any sort of deep mental processing to occur. But they figure it out, and it turns out to be a lot easier than expected.

At school, nothing really seems to change – at first glance. They hold hands under the table, Sehun scribbles love notes into the margins on Jongin’s notebooks, and Jongin always makes sure that Sehun gets the larger slice of pizza at lunch. Once, Chanyeol took teasing Sehun a little too far, and Jongin punches him square in the face. Chanyeol was sent to the nurse with a broken nose, and Jongin received detention for three weeks. Jongin insists that it was worth it.

In public, Jongin likes to drop discreet kisses into Sehun’s hair, and Sehun takes Jongin out to every single fancy restaurant that he’s been wanting to go to (but couldn’t, because he didn’t have anyone to go on fancy dates with).

At home, they snuggle on the couch as Jongin games, all long limbs and laughter. They make out on the loveseat, on Sehun’s bed, on the bathroom counter… everywhere, essentially. Sehun cooks for Jongin and Jongin does the dishes, and they walk Jongin’s dogs together.

It’s nice, it’s sweet, it’s love.

 

 

 

  
On Sehun’s eighteenth birthday, Jongin manages to pull some strings – after school, he brings Sehun back to their elementary school, where they have free access to the small playground. They can’t fit on any of the equipment anymore, so they make do with the sandbox, knees pulled up their chests as they sit pressed up against each other.

“Everything still looks the same,” Sehun marvels.

“I’m thankful for this place,” Jongin says, nudging Sehun’s shoulder. “It brought me to you.”

“I’m thankful for you,” Sehun replies, watching as sand flows through the cracks of his fingers.

He hears plastic crinkling, and looks up to see Jongin holding out a sparkler. Pinching the slim end with his fingers, he waits patiently as it lights up with the aid of a lighter. As soon as the sparks start to fly, Sehun starts drawing lazy patterns in the air, head resting on Jongin’s shoulder.

“It sparkles almost as much as you do,” Jongin murmurs.

Sehun draws a heart in the sky.

 

 

 

  
Their first time together is more than a little awkward, to say the least – it starts off with morning wood and a whole lot of stuttering. It’s finally summer, when they can sleep in, stay home all day, and not have to cram for finals.

Sehun, the first one awake, crawls out of his bed and shuffles towards the bathroom. He spends a solid twenty minutes in there, half the time used to sit on the toilet, half-asleep. When he finally emerges, breath minty fresh and face squeaky clean, Jongin’s starting to rouse from sleep.

“Hey,” Sehun breathes, flopping onto the ball on his bed that is his boyfriend. “Good morning.”

Jongin unfurls from his cocoon, lifts the edge of the duvet, and beckons for Sehun to slide in. It’s only when Jongin settles around Sehun’s lithe frame do they both realize that there’s an elephant in the room – and it’s trunk is currently settled comfortably between Sehun’s asscheeks.

“Shit,” Jongin mutters, instantly trying to twist away from Sehun. “Sorry, I –”

“It’s okay,” Sehun interrupts hurriedly. “I… don’t mind. Stay.”

Jongin swallows thickly and slowly turns back to Sehun.

Every muscle is tense, and pulses are steadily speeding up. It’s with crossed fingers (and toes) that Sehun cautiously pushes back against Jongin’s erection, just a slight roll of his hips. He hears Jongin’s breathing hitch, and the fingers around his waist tighten their grip.

“Sehun, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Jongin starts. “I know you haven’t done anything before, and well, neither have I, so –”

“I’ve always wanted my first to be you,” Sehun mumbles, face buried in the crook of his arm.

“... Me too.”

At that, Sehun musters enough courage to look back at Jongin over his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

  
So that conversation turned out to be the catalyst for a very clueless First Time for the both of them.

At some point, Sehun finds himself sprawled out on his back, legs pushed apart, and hands are firmly clapped over his burning face. Jongin’s got an unsure grip around Sehun’s cock while trembling, lubed fingers rub Sehun’s walls, knuckle deep.

“Are you okay?”

Sehun squeaks; Jongin’s fingers brush _something_ inside him, and in response, his cock twitches in Jongin’s hand.

“Yeah,” he manages to force out. “I’m okay. Can you… can you do that again?”

“Do what? This?”

A curl of those damned fingers sends Sehun arching into Jongin’s fist.

“Fuck, oh my god. Yes, that.”

For the first time in his life, Sehun discovers the joy of his prostate. Jongin doesn’t stop abusing it, too enthralled with the noises that Sehun makes, and Sehun has to cry out for him to stop before he comes all over Jongin’s hand.

“I don’t want – I want – I want you inside me,” Sehun pants, pushing himself up on his forearms. The sunlight breaks into the room, streaking them with near-white. The shadows on Jongin’s face turns his features into a collective masterpiece, and it takes Sehun’s breath away.

They spend a few embarrassingly long minutes trying to figure out which way the condom goes on, and Jongin pours too much lube onto his cock in nervousness. The excess plops down onto Sehun’s thigh, cold and viscous, and they both stifle awkward giggles.

“Are you sure?” Jongin asks. The head of his cock is pushing against Sehun’s entrance, enough for small shocks of pleasure to shoot up Sehun’s spine, but not enough to breach.

“Yeah, do it.”

The initial stretch is almost unbearable. Sehun’s nails dig so hard into the flesh of Jongin’s shoulders that he’s pretty positive blood was drawn. Jongin has to stop moving multiple times before Sehun manages to breathe without feeling pain in his asshole.

For Jongin, however, everything feels fucking good. Sehun’s incredibly tight, and every flutter of those walls around him is a test of his patience. When he finally bottoms out, he exhales shakily, cock throbbing.

“I don’t think you have any idea how good you feel around me right now,” Jongin says, voice tight with pleasure.

“Return the favour,” Sehun retorts, digging a heel into the small of Jongin’s back. “You can move now, I think.”

They try to keep it quiet, but it doesn’t take long before the need for release takes over, and the sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room. It turns Sehun’s cheeks a bright red, but he simply hides his face in the crook of Jongin’s neck and moans into sweaty skin.

It’s all over in just a couple of minutes. Sehun was already on the edge before Jongin entered, and it didn’t take much for him to climax, spilling all over his stomach with a cry of Jongin’s name. Jongin fucks Sehun through his release, and the constant spasming around his cock has him coming too, pulsing into the pliant body beneath him.

“Oh my god,” Sehun breathes, staring down at where they’re still joined. “We need to do this more.”

“Okay,” Jongin agrees, pulling out with a wince – holy fuck, his cock has never been this sensitive – and collapsing next to Sehun. “Gladly.”

Sehun laughs, the bright sound blending beautifully with the light in the room.

 

 

 

  
“Hey, why do you keep that picture in your wallet?”

Jongin shrugs, takes the photograph back from Sehun and returns it to its rightful slot. He places his wallet back on the nightstand and turns to pull Sehun back into his arms.

“It’s you and me.”

It’s them, and it’s more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry chanyeol's an ass in this, but i needed someone taller than sehun lmao
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> [Click for Links!](https://bluedveins.wixsite.com/evoxine)


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